The Star He Would Not Share
"You did say you were looking for Roina."
The crown prince, short blond hair neatly set and a gentle smile resting on his lips, looked as though he had stepped straight out of the very dream the people adored. A maid, caught staring at that beautiful face, set a teacup down too hard—clink. He pretended, with perfect dignity, not to have noticed. The lovely maid, marked by her lush golden hair, flushed and quietly drew back.
"Yes. And the last time, that was all you said—that you would see about finding her."
Across from the crown prince, a man with long black hair let down watched him in silence. The prince's brows dipped, as if the words had put him in a difficult spot.
"Roina... It is true that there was such a maid. However—"
"However?"
At the sudden brevity, the crown prince cursed under his breath.
Lutan Tenebris. The man who had distinguished himself in magic from childhood and taken up the legacy of the Archmage, a succession that had nearly been lost. Roberto's father, the Emperor, had wanted a bond with him, and so he brought that filthy commoner Lutan into the Imperial Palace and made himself his patron. Dragged along by his father's obstinacy, Roberto had collided with the man more than with anyone through his adolescence. In the privacy of his thoughts he had always named him the same way: an accursed little monster.
"...I was told she left her post and quit the palace not long ago."
Something fell with a hollow thud. The same maid, most likely, had dropped her tray. The girl attending them was in poor form today of all days. Already raw with the man he hated sitting before him, Roberto frowned before he could stop himself.
"Hm."
The mage before him tilted his head a fraction, as though turning something over, and studied the crown prince for a moment. Roberto smoothed his face at once and offered a mild smile. He was blood of the exalted imperial house. Composure, in front of a commoner who might have crawled out of any gutter, was the easiest thing in the world.
"It is not right to hide one who bears the Star's talent."
"Quite so. I think the same. If only I could learn where she went—but she has no family, no ties to speak of... I will make every inquiry I can."
Roberto sighed as though he were truly sorry. The Archmage murmured, "I see," was silent a moment, and then rose without the courtesy of a farewell.
"I will come again."
The crown prince smiled and stood to see him out, but the mage was already gone. Where no one could see, Roberto crumpled his expression and swallowed a curse down hard.
Arrogant bastard. The day I am master of this empire, I will have you on your knees, begging my pardon.
Roina was his. She had been his for a very long time. He could not abide that insolent scrap of a mage daring to covet what belonged to him. Heir to the Archmage's talent from the age of myth, the Star in the Darkness, the Mage of Salvation—not one of the names they hung on him pleased him in the least.
The Star's talent? This generation's Archmage was Lutan, and so long as he existed, no other star was required. And if she was a star... then all the more reason she had to be his alone. Even God had permitted it. He had been startled, at first, to hear that she possessed the Star's talent, but he had chosen to hide her away completely and keep every last part of her for himself.
So long as she remained inside the crown prince's palace, not even the Archmage could trespass there.
A clammy light gathered in Roberto's eyes. Wearing a smooth smile, he offered the maid a single gentle word, as a dignified crown prince ought—if she was unwell, she must not push herself—and left the reception room. As heir to the Empire, he had countless matters waiting beyond a trifle like this.
Left alone, the maid sank down as if the strength had gone out of her legs. Glossy golden curls spilled in waves over her shoulders.
Roina... a mage...?
Mayli went pale and bit her lip. She had been pretending otherwise, but she had been worried ever since Roina disappeared from sight several days ago.
She dared leave without a word to me? And she has the Star's talent?
In this world, a mage was no common thing. Ordinary mages were precious enough, and so there were magic scholars who studied magic as a discipline. Magic was a resource worth that much.
But only one person worked true miracles: the Archmage, said to inherit primordial magic down through the generations. Those who bore that gift—the Star's talent—were born exceedingly rarely, once in a hundred years, and only another who carried the same talent could know them at a glance. If the Archmage was telling the truth, then Roina would become a being nobler than any aristocrat.
Mayli swallowed a scream. A thousand feelings crashed through her at once.
Of course. Just as she had thought.
This was no fine escort. It was surveillance, and it was supervision. Ethan had moved her quarters and arranged matters so that she met only the most severely limited number of people.
"Um, the work I used to do—"
"Someone else will see to it."
He said it with perfect indifference. Roina bit her lip.
For now, I'll have to give in.
Once again a long stretch of endurance lay ahead of her. She had no idea why the crown prince was doing this, but sooner or later there would be a gap.
Roina clenched her fist.
"I am Veronica Eckhart, charged today with Lady Roina's education. I ask for your cooperation."
A maid had appeared before her, announcing that she had come to provide an education. The woman who introduced herself as Veronica was a refined beauty, her long straight chestnut hair neatly kept and left to fall, her makeup chosen to set off the whiteness of her skin.
"Good day, Lady Veronica. Forgive the presumption, but why would someone as lowly as I be given an education..."
"It is an undeserved grace from His Highness the Crown Prince. You will receive it with gratitude."
"...I am in your care."
Did she even have refusal as a choice? The thought stayed with Roina even as she returned the greeting as naturally as she could.
The slight pause before she answered had come because the maid's face was familiar. After a moment she placed her. This Veronica was one of the maids who had laughed at her yesterday, while she was hurt.
Veronica never so much as explained what the education was supposed to be. In a cold, exacting voice she simply began. Noble etiquette, the imperial genealogy, everything a servant would need to know if she attended openly at the crown prince's side. In truth, they were things any noble already knew and had absorbed as a matter of course. Those who waited on royalty were, as a rule, nobles themselves.
Manners of that kind had always been withheld from Roina. She was unseen—hardly a person at all, only a symbol. A symbol that the imperial house led the way in refusing to discriminate against slaves.
For some reason, that was no longer so. Without being told why, she was being drilled in the etiquette of the Imperial Palace.
"You do not even know the basics."
An education closer to harassment than to teaching.
Who in the world was skilled from the start at something they had never been taught? Even so, every time Roina was wrong or simply did not know, Veronica let a thin contempt show. Roina had thought her beautiful, but the grimace that flashed across her face in the instant she looked at something she despised felt faintly grotesque.
She spoke too quickly on purpose, or demonstrated a thing only once, and when Roina failed she answered with scorn and a sneer and made her do it again. Even Roina would wear out if hours like these went on.
She was wrung dry when it happened.
"I told you that is not it!"
Maybe I ought to just let go. She's already thrown every restraint aside.
From some point on, Roina had been following Veronica's instructions only to the barest minimum, moving like a machine, and the chestnut-haired noble had grown only more hysterical for it. Roina's indifference clearly did not sit well with her.
Then, as if she had reached her limit, Veronica lost her temper before she knew it and swept her hand up high. She meant, it seemed, to bring it down across Roina's cheek.
"Enough."
A broad, solid back planted itself in front of Roina and cut Veronica off.
"It is time we finished."
"Oh my."
Veronica lifted her chin with practiced grace and checked the clock. Nearly three hours had slipped past.
"Hm. So much time already. Lady Roina, I trust you will apply yourself further, so that your deficiencies do not shame His Highness. I shall return soon. This is the most basic of basics—see that you have learned it before then."
Veronica dropped the imperial genealogy onto the desk with a thud.
Good grief. It might as well be an encyclopedia...
It covered only the most recent line of descent, and even that did not contain the whole of the genealogy. Anyone could see it was not a book one could memorize anytime soon. Roina only nodded, docile. It would surely become a fresh excuse to torment her tomorrow, but she had been waiting for this meaningless stretch of time to end.
"Ha."
Displeased, perhaps, that Roina looked strangely glad, Veronica put on her habitual grimace and turned to go.
Roina sighed and let her shoulders drop. Another correction of her posture from Veronica and she was going to come down with a nervous condition.
"Sir Ethan, why on earth has an education like this begun?"
"......I do not know."
"Hmm."
Roina rubbed her chin.
"Sir Ethan, what am I supposed to do now?"
"You are to wait here."
The place he meant was the room beside the crown prince's bedchamber, a reception room where light refreshments could be served—the waiting room of those who attended at His Highness's side.
Roina dropped onto the sofa and looked up at Ethan.
All through the lesson he had attended to every gesture she made, every movement, every shift of her voice. He had watched her closely, and yet the feeling of it was strangely unlike surveillance, or mere observation.
Roina studied him, puzzled.
These days Mayli seemed as if her soul had left her.
Working in the Imperial Palace was surely an honor. Lately, though, the old conviction that this work was a noble and glorious opportunity had begun to shake. If His Highness, whom she had been so certain was beautiful and elegant, kept striking her as mean and base, then she must have swallowed something very foul indeed.